merylinabarrel

Tuesday afternoon, the vending machine gave me two Hershey bars when I only paid for one, and I took it as a sign that something great was going to happen.

Wednesday, as soon as women's studies ended, I picked up Abbie and we made the long drive to Cleveland for the aforementioned Ira Glass/David Rakoff presentation at the Ohio Theater.

We bought our tickets at the box office and then the extremely enthusiastic octogenarian ushers in oversized red blazers showed us to our seats in the balcony. We got there pretty early so we got to watch these women show everyone to their seats, and each time they acted like the person had the best seat in the house, saying stuff like, "Well, you're right up front!" (of the second section of the balcony). We people-watched for about forty-five minutes and noticed the crowd was a strange mix of emoish teens and twenty-somethings and older, distinguished, theatergoing couples in their 50s or 60s.

Not long after, the director of the Cuyahoga County Library came out for the "Welcome and Introduction," thanked a long list of sponsors and crew members and gave little introductions for Ira and David obviously cobbled together from a variety of internet sources. Everyone clapped and Ira in a brown suit and David in jeans and a sweater came out on stage and took their places. Ira was on the left behind a desk with some CD players and other equipment and David was on the right standing at a podium. There were three empty chairs and three microphones in the middle of the stage. Ira gave a little summary of what they were going to do and said that David was going to read a new essay while he did live music mixing at his desk with grand gestures to show us when he was pressing play.

I'm going to put the long section of details about the presentation under a cut because I'm apparently unable to write about anything without it turning into a seven-page epic and I know most people don't care about all the gushy radio details, so I'll make it easier for you guys to skip ahead to the part about after the show.


David's story started off talking about how having a happy childhood negatively impacted his writing career, but that being short was always a bane of his existence. He also listed a long series of phobias he had, including "balloons blown up too big," which I realized I was afraid of too. I mean, they could pop at any second. Every so often during the story, Ira would hold up his hand like a traffic director to David, who'd pause his reading. Then, after turning up the music (a mix of movie soundtracks like Donnie Darko and Lost in Translation and the normal sort of jazzy stuff), letting it play for a few seconds and bringing it back down, Ira would do this elongated pointing gesture back at David, who would start up with the story again.

After David finished reading and everyone clapped and clapped, the director of arts education at the theater came out for a Q and A, and the three of them sat in the empty chairs in the middle of the room. This woman didn't have any notes or notecards or anything and her questions were awful for the most part. It seemed like she was familiar with the show and their work, but she asked everything in such a meandering way it was like she didn't even know what she was trying to say. She asked a bunch of yes or no questions, left long pauses between answers and new questions, retread the same ground for three questions in a row, and generally made me feel awkward just watching her. Abbie and my favorite exchange went like this and occurred right after a discussion about interviewing former prisoners at Guantánamo Bay:

*awkward pause after last answer*
Moderator: So, um, so you've moved the show to New York now, right?
Ira Glass: Right, yes, our staff has moved to New York.
Moderator: Wow, and has your life just exploded?
*awkward half pause*
Ira Glass: It's busy.
*awkward pause, looks at her as if she has more to ask, she says nothing*
Ira Glass: Well, for about six months we were doing both the radio show and the TV show at the same time and it was kind of like when you order too much food and then you have to eat it all.

Some of it was very interesting; it was just peppered with little messes like that. I really liked when they talked about how stories surprise them by turning out well and how many stories they work on that end up getting thrown away or breaking down or there never really was a story. Ira and David both said that a lot of times they'd get to the very end of a story and stop and say, "So what does this actually mean?" and that a lot of stories get thrown out at that point because they don't seem to have any larger implications. He said that some stories have really strong themes and it's clear the whole way through what they're about, but others have to be shaped at the last minute. "It's always that last paragraph where we scramble for some false epiphany," Ira said. "And then you add music to make it seem like a real epiphany," David added.

This led to a little discussion between the two about how they choose music for various stories, and at this point Ms. Moderator was as much a part of the audience as any of us. I also feel I would be remiss not to mention somewhere in here that twice during the Q and A, Ira reached over and adjusted David's microphone while he was speaking into it, like a mom licking her thumb and rubbing some dirt off her kid's face before he gets his picture taken. It seemed so strange, but David acted like he didn't even notice. He started talking about how he likes to listen to his stories after they've been scored because the music always makes his writing seem much deeper, but said there was one story where he wanted to make them go back and rescore it because he thought it was all wrong. He opened his mouth to say what it was, then looked over at Ira. "Oh no, you're getting your 'I'm about to be offended' face."

Maybe the most interesting part of the presentation came at the end when the moderator asked Ira what he'd discovered about America, saying that since his show was called This American Life, he must have come upon some great truth about the country. He said he gets asked that question occasionally and he never has a good answer. He thought about it for a second and then said he'd noticed over the years that a lot of the people he'd interviewed had been able to make one big change in their lives, the kind of thing where you wake up and decide that you're not going to be this person and you're not going to have this life, so you move and quit your job and start doing something completely different. I thought about it and it seems really true and almost an overarching theme of the show that unites all of these different episodes under that idea. I mean, even the first episode of the show was called "New Beginnings." I don't know. I'm just kind of fascinated because I'd never realized how much this idea pops up in the show.

ANYWAY. Then came a Q and A with the audience. First were two girls, one in high school and one in college, who wanted tips on getting into radio and writing better and stuff. The highschool girl was super meek and babbled a bit about how she's really inspired by the show and tries to enter all these essay-writing contests to try to become a better writer and such. After Ira responded to her comments with some tips and was very encouraging, Ms. Moderator piped up, "Can we have the next person? And can I suggest that you just ask a question?" in a really rude way. Next was a guy who asked about how new technology has affected the way they write or the way they do the show and then some other guy who had a completely forgettable question. Maybe five people had asked questions and there were still six or seven people waiting in line when Ms. Moderator cut them off, saying, "We really need to let these gentlemen get to the lobby, so I think that will be all for the questions," and the audience let out a collective "Awww" crossed with a "Ehhhhh." Ira and David gestured that they didn't mind answering the rest of the questions and Ira made a joke about having to pay the teamsters extra if they went over time, but she gestured back that the two of them should stand up, which they did. So everyone clapped for them and they waved and left the stage.


After the show they were selling copies of David Rakoff's books and Ira Glass' new book out in the lobby and then down the hall a little further Ira and David themselves were set up at a table signing books and programs. I'd brought my copies of the books with me, and I have to say I was kind of proud that my books were all beat to hell from being boxed up and moved and read and reread. Even Ira Glass' book, which I just got a week ago, was all bent up and written in. We eventually made it up to the table and the guy in front of us asked if he could get a picture with Ira and asked if I would take it with his disposable camera. He went back behind the table and stood next to Ira, and Ira stood on his tiptoes and put his left arm around the guy's shoulders and smiled to show all his big great Buddy Holly teeth. Like he was thrilled to be in the picture with him. It really looked like this other guy was the famous one and Ira was the fan. I found it very charming. After I took the picture, Rakoff took another one of them closer up and then gave the guy back his camera and it was my turn(!).

I said I'd enjoyed their performance/talk and asked if they'd sign my books.
"What's your name?" Ira asked.
"Meryl. M-E-R-Y-L."
The Moderator woman was standing behind them and chimed in, "That's such a pretty name."
"Thank you so much," I said.
"I like this spelling better than the one with the two r's and two ll's," Ira said.

They started signing their names and there was a second where no one was saying anything, so I decided to tell them that we'd driven from Athens to see them. Which is lame, I know. I always internally groan when people brag about how far they came to see a show, but whatever.

"Athens, Georgia?" David Rakoff joked.
"Ha. No, Athens, Ohio. We're both from Akron, but we go to school in Athens," I said.
"What school is in Athens?" Ira asked.
"Ohio University," I said.
"Oh... right," Ira said in a funny way.
Ms. Moderator, still apparently hanging on our every word, chimed in, "There's a really good journalism school at Ohio University."
"Yeah, the E.W. Scripps School," I said.
"So are you in the journalism school?" Ira asked.
"I am. I'm in the broadcast news sequence," I said.
"Wow. What's that like?" Ira asked.

I got a little fluttery and I have no idea what I answered, but it was something like "It's pretty cool," or "It's all right." I said that in my radio class I'm in right now we listen to a lot of NPR news briefs and practice making lots of little stories. For example, I said, this weekend I have to go out and find some sort of Halloween story to report on. And this is where Ira Glass, who was already standing up, leaned over right in my face and said, "Do a fucking haunted house." The f-word!

"Really? A haunted house?" I asked, and Ira launched into a mile-a-minute explanation of what was so great about haunted houses and how I had to do it from the inside and then I interrupted, "Wait, can I record you?"
"Well, yeah, but I'm in the middle of a book signing right now. Do you mean record me telling you all this?"
"Right, yeah," and I whipped out my little recorder.

And he gave me THIS.
And THIS.

The entire time he was talking he was still right in my face, like our glasses were eight inches apart and he's looking right at me and I'm just grinning and nodding because I don't want to say anything and mess up his audio, as you can hear when I asked a question and he just rolled right over me. Also, you can't hear it on the tape, but Ms. Moderator, tried to interrupt him and said rather anxiously, "Can you continue signing books while you do that?" but he didn't hear her or ignored her. And I have to say, of the three times I've met/seen him in person, this was the first time my brain was able to take the voice of Ira Glass and the person Ira Glass and put them together into one unified human. I didn't feel weird when I was talking to him, and I wasn't even that nervous. He seemed like a cool, normal person. Which is great. Oh, and when he said the "I did this story," part, he reached out and put his hand on my hand in a very "I've been there" manner. It was great.

I thanked him profusely and talked to David Rakoff for half a second and told him that I love every time he's on The Daily Show because it's always so funny (seen here). Abbie had them sign her program, but she did not speak. Then we left, got some food and drove back to Athens, arriving at 2 a.m.

The actual audio sounds better than those clips and doesn't cut off at the end. My computer is just a piece of shit, so I'll re-do it in the lab on Monday. I already have the vision of the story in my head. Tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday I've identified three different haunted houses I'm going to visit and talk to people and get natural sound. Then I'm going to cut it together so it has Ira saying something about haunted houses and then my audio from the haunted house. Like when he says I have to ask about their competitors, I'll have an actuality of someone talking about their competitors. And when he does the chainsaw noise and says the kids scream, I'll have an actuality of the chainsaws in the haunted house and the kids screaming. It'll be kind of schizo, but I think it'll be funny. And then my professor will play it for the class.

And I am sure to get an A.
Gah.